Intel Quietly Introduces 3.8GHz P4

BatonRogue writes "I didn't see this anywhere else, but it looks like Intel has quietly launched their Pentium 4 570J running at 3.8GHz. The J denotes Intel's Execute Disable Bit support, which they have also quietly introduced (it seems to save face of being 2nd to support it behind AMD). AnandTech seems to be the only place to have a review of the 570J. It performs reasonably well and even better than AMD in some areas, while falling behind in things like games. AnandTech has a nice one page benchmark comparison of the 570J to AMD's 4000+ as a quick reference."

Comments

i recently built a 3.6 ghz intel

[Indy1]

for a grad student at work (i work IT for the engineering college) and the grad student insisted on intel. I warned him that intels run hotter and louder (because they need more cooling) but he said intel anyways. Well once i delivered the machine to him, the first thing he said was "wow that thing is loud". I used a boxed intel cpu (which comes with the heatsink and fan) and when you put it under load, you can hear it clear across the room. Intel's heat problem is just ridiciously, and i am afraid to even hear what a 3.8 ghz would sound like when you ran it full steam.

Massive power consumption difference

[Brian Stretch]

Look at the power consumption difference between this new P4 and the Athlon 64. It's big enough between the 90nm P4's and 130nm A64's, but a 90nm P4 system uses nearly twice the juice of a 90nm A64. Mind you, that's the difference between entire systems, so the consumption difference between just the CPUs is even more extreme.

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...

Re:I can guess why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaming is really the only reason for a CPU upgrade these days.

Ever heard of scientific applications? Fourier transforms, protien folding, SETI@home and the like?

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't try justifying it (though I believe it to be your first guess), but the relationship between GHz and PR is (somewhat) meaningless anyway.

4000+ dosen't mean "roughly equivlant to a P4 @ 4.0GHz", but instead "roughly equivlant to a Thunderbird @ 4.0GHz", so the comparison even between a 3.8 and a 3800+ could still be construed as not being fair (for one side or the other).

Re:I feel the need. The need for speed

[grmoc]

Absolutely. Try processing 1920x1280 sized frames of video at 30 frames per second. Even if the bandwidth is there (and it is, just barely), the CPU doesn't keep up.

Computer vision (and other computational perception/AI fields) eat up CPU like nobody's business... ... And while you may immediately think its research, it is entirely possible that people in the broadcast industry attempt to do this kind of thing on a daily basis ...

Re:Weird

[bersl2]

The P4EE is the competitor to the A64FX.

BTW: Talk about Alphanumeric Soup...

Re:Much needed

[AvitarX]

imagine OO.o start up times though.

It may feel like word 97.

Re:Anandtech - single-page version

[Anonymous Coward]

However the full review is a good 14 pages of ad cluttered pages.

Here's the single-page version. I'm running AdBlock, so I don't know if it has any ads.

NX Bit

[RAMMS EIN]

``Intel's Execute Disable Bit support, which they have also quietly introduced (it seems to save face of being 2nd to support it behind AMD)''

IIRC, VIA and Transmeta already support this. And, of course, all Real CPUs have supported it for years.

Re:Question about the NX bit

[caveman]

Not a lot.

For NoExecute to work properly, code sections need to be read-only. See notes in my previous comment. Merely marking data no-execute doesn't prevent valid instructions from being overwritten unless they are protected, and that protection is also protected. (I.e. it's no good having code sections which are marked no-write, if the latest IE bug-du-jour can merely change the permissions from user mode. It has to be a kernel mode operation).

Re:I can guess why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Disable (nx) bit has little (if anything) to do with DRM.

It is used so that parts of memory that shouldnt be executed (like data stores etc) can actually be set so by the soft/hardware. This defeats most (all?) buffer overflow exploits, that are so common in virus/es/s/ii.

It wont stop you from using your CPU to execute what you what.

Go google a little and learn

Re:How the mighty have fallen!

[MojoStan]

Don't mention Celeron. I don't know why Intel keep on releasing it ... In today's market I just don't understand the need to have a low-end Celeron line.

They keep releasing Celerons because there is a large market for brand-new $400-$500 computers. Dell and HP can't build them without sub-$100 processors and matching low-end chipsets.

They give low-budget a new low.

According to another Anandtech article, today's Prescott-based Celerons (Celeron D) give surprisingly good performance for "low-budget" processors. The Celeron D is a huge improvement over the Northwood-based Celeron, which was hindered by its low cache (8k L1 cache, 128K L2) and resulting pipeline stalls. The Celeron D's increased cache and other architectural improvements have resulted in good performance for a CPU that starts at $66.50. Remember, buyers of sub-$500 PCs aren't expecting good Doom 3 performance.

What's even worse are the laptop Celerons, which perform like 486 chips relabeled.

Again, you aren't looking at the newest Celeron M processors, which are based on the Pentium M core. The Dothan-based Celeron M CPUs have 1MB L2 cache, 400MHz bus, high IPC, and very low power requirements. For moderately-priced thin-and-light notebooks with long battery life, I think the Celeron M is better than any mobile Athlon or G4 processor.

I'm not saying that Intel hasn't released some stinkers under their "Celeron" label. The Pentium 4-based Celerons sucked when they only had 128K of L2 cache, but now they have 256K and the Prescott core. Recent notebook Celerons had the same core as those sucky desktop Celerons, but now they use the highly-praised Pentium M core.

Two years ago, desktop and notebook Celerons did suck. But now, Dell offers a Celeron D desktop with PCI-Express (915G chipset) for $568. HP/Compaq sells a $599 notebook with a Dothan-based Celeron M. I think that's pretty good performance and technology for those prices.